With TSMC’s 3nm delay and little processor change this year, can Apple bounce back with the A16 Bionic?

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With TSMC's 3nm delay and little processor change this year, can Apple bounce back with the A16 Bionic?

With the launch of the Apple iPhone 13 series slated for next Friday, we have to take a look at the future of the iPhone 14 range. We have already seen a render of the 2022 handset with the notch replaced by a perforation on the screen and a recessed rear camera module. And the 5nm A15 Bionic chipset under the hood will undoubtedly be replaced by the A16 Bionic.

TSMC’s 3nm delay means Apple iPhone 14 series will be equipped with a 4nm A16 Bionic chip

The original plan called for the A16 Bionic to be manufactured by the world’s largest foundry, TSMC, using the new 3nm process node. But when you are dealing with billions of transistors in each chip (there are 15 billion inside the A15 Bionic versus 11.8 billion inside the A14 Bionic), the problem that faces the biggest foundries like TSMC and Samsung.

Due to production problems, TSMC has already announced that it is delaying the release of the 3nm chips. CEO CC Wei said, “It is true that about 3 to 4 months is a delay from 5 nanometers. Next year. ”According to Nikkei Asia, Apple’s first 3nm chipset could be the A17 Bionic which would first be deployed on an iPad, indicating that a 3nm chip will miss the iPhone’s release next year.
Due to the delay, the A16 Bionic powering the iPhone 14 line will be built using the 4nm process node minimizing possible performance gains and power efficiency. In fact, generally, the higher the number of transistors in a chip, the more powerful and energy efficient it is.
Accused of an exodus of the best talent at Apple, The A15 Bionic does not appear to be a big improvement over the A14 Bionic in terms of CPU according to Semianalysis. This is partly explained by the gain of less than 1% in transistor density from 134.09 million per mm squared to 135.14 million transistors per mm square. This is a small increase in density that suggests Apple’s drive for innovation has moved it away from the processor this year, perhaps for the reasons we mentioned at the start of this paragraph.
Apple typically offers a percentage improvement in performance year over year, but this year it has done something different. He cited 50% faster processor performance, but against the unnamed “competition”. And that competition will eventually release its new silicon such as the Exynos 2200 and Snapdragon 898 chipsets. These latter two chips will both be produced by Samsung Foundry using its 4nm process node.

TSMC CEO CC Wei’s comment on the 3nm delay concerns Apple and tells us when the foundry plans to prepare for 3nm production. The manager said, “Yes, the 3 nanometer technology is actually very complicated both in the processing technology and in the design of customers’ products. . And that’s – we decided with our client to best meet their needs. ”

Apple set to rebound in 2022 with a focus on the A16 Bionic processor

The acceleration in the second half of next year confirms that TSMC will run out of time and will not be able to supply Apple with a 3nm chip for the iPhone 2022 lineup. The foundry has been fairly stable in the past with its foils. road, but now, with fear that we are near the end of Moore’s Law (the observation that the number of transistors inside a chip doubles every two years), that 3nm hiccup could trigger alarms.

TSMC and Samsung are already on track to plan for the 2nm process node, and in May IBM announced it was making the first 2nm chip.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple bounce back in 2022. Geekbench numbers for the A15 Bionic showed a 9% single-core increase and a 15% multi-core increase. Wait

much higher gains for the A16 Bionic as Apple seeks to right the ship after many of its chip executives jumped overboard.

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